All These Things That I've Done
by vargrimar
Summary: Billy Creel isn't a saint. He's done a lot in his life. With Maggie, he's determined to keep on the straight and narrow. The wanderer really isn't helping. A string of tiny slapdash vignettes that make up a story in the end. Billy/FLW, Billy/various OCs.
1. i

The first Billy Creel hears of the wanderer is from Maggie.

"She's got a blue jumpsuit," she says, sitting down at the worn table. An old brown bowl is cupped between her palms, cracked near the rim. "Big yellow numbers were on the back."

"Really now? What numbers?" he asks.

Maggie makes a face as she brings the thin broth to her chapped lips, dredging up the memory. "One-oh-one."

Billy raises an eyebrow, pressing his worn spoon to the table. "You sure?"

"Positive," says Maggie.

He strokes his beard, calloused fingers knotting absently through the coarse brown hair. "Another from that vault. That other fellow was from the vault, too, if I remember right. Did you get a good look at her?"

"Kind of tall. Short brown hair, all messy and weird. She had a gun, too. It was small, though." Maggie shrugs. "Mister Simms let her in. He was talking to her at the gate but I didn't catch everything."

Billy leans forward, interested. "What did you hear?"

"Something about her father, I think. And something about the bomb in the middle of town." She puts the bowl down and stares intently at the gristly chunks of soggy meat congealing in the center. "Could've sworn I heard Mister Simms talking about disarming it, but the Atom church wouldn't like that very much, would they?"

"No, probably not," Billy agrees.

Maggie sips at the stew again, a thoughtful hum in her throat. "She went to the saloon after the sheriff let her go."

"Information and a bed, I'll bet. Moriarty's got it all up there." Billy grunts, considering, and then adjusts his eye patch. "You'd better watch yourself, sweetheart, you hear?"

Maggie doesn't seem pleased—it's not often that they get new faces other than caravans around here after all—but she nods anyway and drinks her supper in noisy mouthfuls.

"That's my girl," says Billy, and leans over to kiss her forehead.


	2. ii

The second Billy Creel hears of the wanderer is from Moira Brown.

"Oh, she's such a dear. She's helping me with my wasteland survival guide, you know." Moira is sweeping the floor about the Craterside Supply, ushering dirt and crumbs into a nearby dustpan.

Billy finds himself chuckling. "And what crazy experiment did you send the vaultie out to do?"

"Nothing _really_ dangerous," says Moira, tucking back a lock of bright red hair. "The first chapter is all about survival, so things like food, medicine, and rads all need to be addressed. And what better person to investigate than someone who's willing to brave the wastes?" She pauses her sweeping and picks up the dust pan, wrinkling her nose at the contents inside. "Goodness, I didn't think it got so _dirty_ in here."

Billy shifts his weight and leans against the counter. "Did she ever come back? After you sent her off, I mean."

Moira brings a trash can toward her with the side of her thick leather boot and tilts the pan over the edge. "She did, and with lots of stories. She was a bit banged up though, poor thing, but I told her Doc Church would set her right. Well, for fee of course. You know how he is," she adds with a laugh.

"It's a wonder she came back at all, knowing your kind of errands." Smiling, he amends, "No offense, Moira."

"People can be more resourceful than you think, you know," she says matter-of-factly, a hand pressing on her tilted hip, thumb hooked around her apron tie. "It's amazing what we can do when we really put our minds to it. Did you know that she went to the Super Duper Mart and fought through a gang of raiders with handfuls of grenades and mines?"

Billy arches his eyebrows. "Grenades and mines, huh? That's pretty impressive, I'd think."

"She bought quite a few. Where else would you expect to get the best explosives in the Capital Wasteland?" Moira grins and turns back to her sweeping, a merry hum on her lips.


	3. iii

The third Billy Creel hears of the wanderer is from Gob.

"She's civil," says the ghoul, his voice all gravel and stones. He's toweling off a beer mug, the glass chipped and clouded with age. "No screeching or hitting or shouting like the rest of you smoothskins."

Billy scowls. "I never treated you bad."

"You never treated me good, either," Gob rasps.

Billy lowers his good eye to the stained wood counter and stares into the shot of scotch between his palms. A rare allowance, the liquid is cool and clear and the smell makes his mouth water. Licking his lips, he brings it to his mouth and tilts back. The bite is fresh on his wet tongue.

"So, she go up and talk to Moriarty?" he asks, savoring the swallow.

Gob's expression sours, the cracked flesh on his cheeks splitting. "What's it to you, Creel?"

"I'm just curious is all," he replies. "Can't deny a man that. Been a while since someone from a vault stayed here, you know."

"A few days ago, you mean," says Gob.

"He left only a few hours after he got here. She seems intent on sticking around, though. It's interesting."

The ghoul makes a congested snorting noise. "A lot of people are 'interesting'."

Billy shrugs. "If you say so."

As Gob slides him a cola down the counter, Billy catches movement from the corner of his eye. Peering over his shoulder in the dim smoky light, he sees Burke move past the bar, dress shoes scuffing the splintered floorboards. A cynical smirk curls the businessman's lips as he tips his pre-war styled hat in their direction, exiting the saloon without a word.

He glances to Gob, asking silently what that had been about. The ghoul only shakes his head in reply, decaying teeth settling stubbornly on his split lower lip.

Billy pops open the cola with his thumb and pockets the cap. Bottle to his lips, a bad feeling begins to nest and writhe behind his ribs.


	4. iv

The first time Billy Creel sees the wanderer, it's sunset outside the Craterside Supply.

She's no longer wearing the blue jumpsuit Maggie had described. Leather and buckles are tight against muscles and limbs, and an old rifle slings awkwardly across her back. Dirt smudges against her cheeks and temples and sweat greases her dark hairline, setting a filmy sheen to her sunburnt skin. High cheekbones shape her face, gaunt and thin with chapped lips.

She's unremarkable. Plain and filthy, just like any other traveler.

Billy sees the pink-tinged bandages on stretches of skin that the armor doesn't cover. He can only assume that Moira's experiments have taken their toll. He doesn't know the stranger, but he has to hand it to her: working with Moira takes some guts. Or stupidity. But definitely a good amount of guts. Perhaps the wanderer will make some use of herself. A happy Moira is a happy Megaton, after all.

He takes pause along the railing and watches her with his good eye. She walks with halting movements, favoring her right leg with a slight limp. Her body is thin, yielding, ill-conditioned to the wastes. Nothing but bone and tendons and narrow hips; all ribcage and sweat and sunburn.

She catches his gaze and gives him an offhanded grin as she hobbles past.

Raising a hand in salutation, Billy feels himself return the smile.


	5. v

The second time Billy Creel sees the wanderer, it's after dark and she's kneeling at the bomb.

At first, he thinks she's joined Cromwell and the rest of the cultists from the Church of Atom in their bizarre focus of worship. It seems a very strange thing to do for a vault dweller; but then again, religion sprouts in places where you least expect, so it doesn't surprise him entirely.

But when he creeps closer, he sees that she's not just kneeling, but _examining_. Her hands, thin and deft, are sliding over the casing and probing under the panels, poking at wires and places inside where he can't see. A small cylindrical object is tucked between her belt and the leather of her armor at her hip. It seems to give off its own light; muted, eerie, blue.

It doesn't seem _right_. What is she doing?

A sharp pulse of adrenaline pushes through the chambers of his heart. A hand resting on the butt of the trusted magnum at his side, he approaches her with his boots grinding firmly into the gravel to announce his presence.

"Our little town mascot is pretty interesting, huh?" He takes care to draw back the protective edge in his voice. The hairs on the back of his neck are on end. His body is alert, aware, ready, back in his scavenger days.

She flinches when she hears the crack of his voice, and she suddenly twists her neck to look over her shoulder. Her eyes are brown, dark and murky, and are wide with a note of clear shock. She tries to get up to face him fully, but she loses her balance in the pool of muck and water sucking at her ankles, and instead she stumbles shoulder-first into the side plating of the bomb. A hiss of pain gurgles in the back her mouth.

Biting her lip, she manages to turn around. "Sorry," she mumbles, nursing her left arm. "I was curious. I like explosives."

"You'd fit right in with Cromwell then," says Billy, curt and abrasive. Perhaps a bit too much, he thinks.

"I don't _worship_ them," she insists. "I like them. There's a difference."

Billy folds his arms, offering an incredulous stare.

"I really wasn't trying anything," she says, her lips thinning into a frown. "You just don't know how interesting an undetonated nuclear warhead really is. I'm from a vault, you know. We don't see much."

He doesn't buy her denials, not entirely, but he keeps his suspicions tucked behind his breastbone and offers her his hand. "Megaton might be the best little town this side of the wasteland, but it's still pretty rough around the edges. Some folks might think differently if they see you tinkering like that. Watch yourself, doll."

As she takes it and allows him to pull her back from the pool, Billy notes that the object that had been at her hip is no longer there. Perhaps hidden away in a pocket or pouch elsewhere in her armor? It's curious and strange and it doesn't sit right with him, but it doesn't matter. It's gone and she's leaning into him as she tries to right herself on the shore and she smells of sweat and leather and gunpowder; a bundle of bandages and antiseptic and shaking limbs.

"You'd better get patched up before you go back to Moira too," he adds, steadying her shoulders. "She'd be pretty upset if her research assistant happened to go missing, and believe me, seeing that pretty lady upset isn't a good thing."

"I won't die," she mutters, murky eyes to the ground.

"That's what they all say," says Billy. And he would know.


	6. vi

_Billy remembers:_

"I won't die," said Will.

Andy tightened the tourniquet around Will's leg. The wound beneath was bleeding, coloring, festering. "Just hang in there, man. You hang in there, okay? We'll get you some help soon. John went to look for stimpacks. He'll be back in a bit, and then we'll be able to get you fixed up."

Will groaned in agony beside the crackling firelight, tossing his head from side to side in delirium. His respiration was erratic; his ribcage rose and fell with jagged breaths. Five days ago, he had hurt his leg in a fight with a radscorpion. Three days ago, the fever had caught him. Now, he couldn't move.

Andy drew away and walked toward the edge of their camp by the rocks. Light licked at his heels. "This doesn't look good," he said, wringing his hands.

Billy was lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head. The stars were hidden by the passing hides of rolling clouds. "Yeah, I know. It's getting worse. How long has John been gone?"

Andy ran a hand through his hair, working out some of the knots. It was longer than when they had started out a year ago, longer and stained by the touch of the sun. "A couple hours now, I'm guessing," he replied. "I don't know for sure. None of us have a watch." He paused for a moment, creeping silence, and then, "What are we going to do when Will dies?"

Being the older brother, Billy was often sought for advice when a situation didn't go quite right. He didn't mind it, not normally, but this was the kind of advice he wasn't qualified to give. He was eighteen, barely a man; he had never expected any of this to happen.

"I just don't know," said Billy, closing his eyes. "We don't have shovels or anything to dig with, Andy. We can't bury him."

Andy glanced to the fire, to Will and his feverish writhing. "I don't want him to get eaten by mole rats or radscorpions. He was a good friend. We've known him for years."

"I know. I know." Billy sighed, hoping to reach deep inside himself and find the answer, any answer, some modicum of insight, but nothing came forth. "Let's just wait until John gets back, all right? We'll decide what to do then. I promise."

The sliver of moon sank slowly below the horizon as the boys turned to sleep. Stars were blotted out one by one, fading into a pastel palette of sky.

John never returned, and Will was dead by morning.


	7. vii

The third time Billy Creel sees the wanderer, she's with Maggie outside the Brass Lantern.

"Can I really?" asks Maggie, holding the pistol reverently in her hands.

The woman smiles. It seems a natural thing, soft and smeared and less fearful than the night before. "I don't need it anymore, so I don't see why not."

Maggie finally closes her gaping mouth and finds her pleasantries. "Thank you, miss. Thank you so very much! It looks amazing."

"It's in good condition and it fires without a hitch," says the wanderer. "It was given to me by an old friend. I'd keep it, but I can only carry so much. Besides, I'm not such a great shot with smaller firearms."

Grinning, Maggie closes one eye and aims at an invisible target on one of the overlooking metal balconies. "I hope Billy teaches me how to shoot soon. This will be so great!"

He'd be lying if he said it didn't warm his heart to see the girl so happy. She's asked him about learning the ropes of firearms in the past, he remembers, but he's always shrugged it off and told her the phrase all children hate to hear: _Maybe when you're older._ A part of him instantly regrets it.

Maggie spies him as he approaches and she quickly cradles the pistol protectively against her chest, afraid he'll wrench it away. "Let me keep it, Billy," she pleads. "Please let me keep it!"

He smiles fondly at her and puts a thick hand on the knob of her shoulder. "Wait just a moment now, Maggie. Don't get too carried away." He glances up to the wanderer, catching her brown eyes. They're quiet, focused, resolute. Sniper eyes. "I'm assuming it's a decent piece?"

She gives a slight nod. "Modified a little. Took parts from other N99s and did some replacing for bits that needed it the most. It works better than when I got it."

Billy holds out his palm to Maggie. "Can I see?"

Puffing out her lower lip, she reluctantly places the pistol in his hand.

He brings it close, running his fingers along the length of the barrel. It's smooth, clean, barely scratched; she must have taken good care of it. He checks the magazine slot, half expecting it to be still loaded, but all that remains is an empty gap. If any bullets had been inside, they had all been spent. Rightfully so.

Shutting it, Billy twirls the pistol around his trigger finger for good measure before offering it back to Maggie. "Well, it seems all right. You'd best keep it safe and out of the way, baby girl. I don't want to hear about you pulling this out around town, you hear?"

Maggie seems absolutely delighted. She snatches the gun from his hand, biting her lip as she points it playfully at the wanderer. "Wait 'til I tell Harden! Oh, I'll be the best shot _ever_, just you watch!"

"I gave the ammo to Moira," says the woman, edging toward him as the little girl revels in her newfound joy. "If you want to teach her how to shoot, you might need some bullets first."

"You didn't have to do this," says Billy. He can't explain it, but he feels slighted somehow. It's as if she's implied that he's too inadequate to see to Maggie's happiness. He knows he shouldn't feel that way of course, but she's a stranger, a vault dweller, around in Megaton not even two weeks, and she's already won over his surrogate daughter's heart. It prickles at his insides and he hates how it feels.

"I know I didn't," she replies, "but I didn't want to sell it. I wanted to give it to someone that would take good care of it." She makes an awkward smile with a slight twist of her mouth. "You care about Megaton and you care about Maggie. I knew it would be safe here."

Billy's not really sure what to say, so he simply extends his right hand.

She chuckles, sniper eyes gunning straight into him, and shakes it hard.

He thinks he feels his heart thump a little bit harder.


	8. viii

It's after the wanderer goes off on another one of Moira's experiments when Billy Creel decides to finally teach Maggie how to shoot.

It's a few hours after dawn. The sky is pink and burnt, a murky canvas of rejected colors. Taking her just outside the town walls, Billy sets up some empty cola and beer bottles along a rock so she can practice her aim. Simple things; one step at a time.

She holds the gun awkwardly with both hands. She's small, of course, and he doesn't expect her to hold all that weight with one skinny little arm (especially with any kickback), but he still tells her that it's a one-handed weapon and it should eventually be held that way whenever she's old enough.

Maggie only grins, her black hair swaying with the hot breeze, and she fires her first shot.

The bullet shell hits the ground with a muffled _thop_. No shatter is heard.

She slumps her shoulders a little, discouraged. Billy knows she expected to make her mark on the first try—he vaguely remembers that he had once thought that way, too—so he pats her back and helps her stand straight, keeping a good posture, his rough hands guiding her knobby arms.

"Aim takes practice," he reminds her sagely, but she doesn't want to listen, she wants to _shoot_ something.

Another gunshot is heard, and a bottle breaks into a kaleidoscope of colored glass.


	9. ix

It's a couple of weeks before Billy Creel sees the wanderer again.

He's sitting at the bar in Moriarty's saloon, a cola wet against his palm, when Lucas Simms barges in with the young woman at his back. Light pierces through the smoke and squalor as the door slams back on its hinges. Simms has his rifle drawn, which immediately captures Billy's gaze and sets his heart striking melodies along his ribcage.

The sheriff sweeps the room with his dark eyes, searching, and then approaches Burke in the far corner with a countenance of purpose and subtle rage.

Billy can't hear what they're saying. It's all gibberish and jagged syllables and _damn_ when had the room suddenly gotten so loud? He leans away from the counter and tries to see what's going on, but onlookers have begun to swarm around the scene and he can't for the life of him get a clear view. He forgets the Nuka-cola on the counter and hops down from the barstool, beginning to nudge his way through the small crowd. Billy stretches on his toes and gazes over the heads of the other saloon patrons, he _has_ to see what's happening, and then Simms parts the people with a wave of his rifle and Burke is rising from his chair and pulling out a pistol—

_Lucas, behind you—_

He can feel the gunshot thrumming in his bones, in his chest, in his head—

And then there's a bright shatter of blood and skull fragments and brain matter and then the sickening _thump_ of a person against the floorboards, no, a _body_, and shouts leap from mouths as they see him lying dead on the floor and all Billy can see is the wanderer, red-speckled and still, rifle in hand and scope by a sunburnt cheek, smoke clearing from the barrel, sniper eyes hollow and sure.

"He wanted this place gone," she says. "Destroyed by the bomb." It sounds mechanical, forced; she's having trouble talking.

He watches Simms as he presses a trembling hand to his heart, murmuring something about getting old, but Billy doesn't fully hear it.

He doesn't know when he started to shake, but he is. It feels as though he's watching this from somewhere else, somewhere far away, and the adrenaline rushing through his veins supplies a high more potent than any syringe of psycho could ever hope to reach.

The spray of red on the floor makes him remember. He remembers the wasteland, the scavengers, the raiders, Maggie under the bed, and he clenches his fists as he swallows down howls and memories and blood and death.


	10. x

_Billy remembers:_

It was hot. The scorching wind carried dust in its arms and the sun scowled down with molten anger.

His bandana was tied tight around his nose and mouth; a flimsy barrier against what came with the whipping air, but it was better than bare and breathing in the dancing motes. Sweat was dribbling down his temples, soaking his sun-bleached hair, and his throat felt as dry as the cracked and broken ground beneath his boots.

The caravan moved at a slow pace. It crawled from town to town along the Capital Wasteland, offering scavenged junk and treasures to anyone willing to buy. At twenty-six, Billy played a merc, a body guard, and helped keep the caravan's owner and valuables safe from harm. As they headed northwest of DC toward Paradise Falls, the dangers seemed to spread thinner. It was a respite, one of few, especially with the unbearable heat.

"Is that a town up ahead?" Wolfgang squinted under the harsh sunlight, his hand over his eyes.

Billy mimicked the gesture. "There are buildings up there all right. A good spot?"

Wolfgang twisted his mouth in thought. "We're a bit off from any inhabited places. It might make a good place to get out of this fucking heat, though. Let's give it a look." He tugged on the brahmin's rope. "C'mon, time to move."

When they approached, it seemed like it used to be a town. The buildings were deserted, wrecked, splintered, but some had still managed to remain somewhat intact. Billy glanced about the broken road between the lines of ramshackle houses and a glint caught his eye, shining just near his feet. He knelt and picked up the object.

"What is it?" asked Wolfgang.

"It's a bullet shell," said Billy, holding it tight between his fingers. "Looks like a .308 round." He looked ahead, and he saw that the ground was littered with glimmering shells, smaller and bigger than the one he held.

He heard Wolfgang swallow. "I have a bad feeling about this place."

Billy dropped the round, his body on high alert. He felt the wind, the heat, the dust as it smeared on his arms. "So do I."

Gunshots were heard on the other side of town, splitting the air, and screams followed in a sick harmony of cracking octaves.

"Raiders," Billy breathed. "Quick, _move_, get into an alley before they come this way!"

Wolfgang yanked on the brahmin's rope, hissing at the animal in bitten curses when it refused to budge. Billy gave it a smack on the flank as he withdrew his magnum, and the two ushered it into the cover behind a rickety old house.

The shouts grew louder, the gunshots more erratic. Billy peered around the side of the building, his hands against the splintered wooden wall. Glimpses of the gang could be seen from the back of the alleyway: men and women with spiked mohawks and disheveled hair, smoking firearms, bare skin and bloody bandages and haphazard scraps of armor. They dragged bags with them, duffle bags and grocery bags and pieces of tarp, all spilling over with food, clothing, medicine, caps—a fortune in wasteland loot.

Billy forced a swallow as he watched them skulk past. He held up his hand, signaling Wolfgang to remain quiet. There would be little point in throwing away their lives, especially since Wolfgang had rescued him and offered him a job. It would be a poor way to repay the man for his kindness.

He waited several minutes to make absolutely sure they were gone. When he felt it was safe to move, he glanced to Wolfgang. "I want to see something. Stay here. If I'm not back in two hours, head on out to Paradise Falls. Don't wait for me."

"This is a bad idea, Creel," said Wolfgang. "If they catch you, you'll get your face blown straight off."

"I know," said Billy.

Wolfgang offered no further protest.

Billy followed the trails of bullet shells, discarded loot, and blood. They led him to a series of houses on the other side of town. They had been inhabited, he could tell without a doubt: doors were kicked open, bodies were strewn on the porches and stoops, windows were shattered, and abandoned items lay outside in the dirt.

Magnum held tightly in hand, Billy traversed the homes. There wasn't much left to rifle through. The raiders had picked them clean. Broken television sets and other appliances lay on the floor, medicine cabinets and drawers along the walls were open and jutting with their contents either taken or tossed aside. Pantries were bare; bedrooms torn apart; no place was left unlooted.

He climbed the stairs in the last house, each step creaking under his weight. At the top, he noted that the rooms here were stripped as well. As he moved further down the hallway, he caught the coppery smell of blood mixed with the sickening, cloying stench of death. He wrinkled his nose and continued forward, the bandana pressed closer the his face.

The bedroom was a tomb. Blood was dashed on the bed, the walls, soaking through the floorboards. Two people lay in the very center, limbs broken and splayed at odd angles against the wood. It would be generous to call them _people_, he thought. They were hardly recognizable as bodies.

He was going to kneel to examine them further, but he heard the sharp sound of a human cry.

Billy paused, his index finger on the trigger. "Who's there?" His good eye looked over the dresser, the nightstand, the bed, the chairs.

No one answered.

He took hesitant steps around the bodies, his muscles tensed and ready for the worst. He combed the room, searching for anything suspicious, anything out of line. It was when he passed by the bed that he noticed a shoe.

It was a white shoe. Or at least it had been. It was greying now, smeared with filth and blood. A little girl's shoe, with small colored hearts stitched on the sides. And from the shoe, a shuddering leg.

"Are you all right?" His voice was surprisingly soft to his ears.

The leg and the shoe vanished further beneath the bed. A strangled sob marked their disappearance.

"I won't hurt you," he said, kneeling by the foot of the bed. "I'm not like them. I promise." He tugged the bandana from his face and settled it around his neck. He then flipped the safety on the magnum, set the weapon on the floor, and pushed it away from his hand. "See? I'm not a raider. I'm not here to hurt you. I work with a fellow named Wolfgang, he runs a caravan. I'm a body guard. I don't hurt people, I keep them safe."

He heard shuffling somewhere under the bed. "Th-they _killed_ them," came a small, ragged voice. It was primal, heartrending; so sad and alone and he was sure he hadn't heard anything so raw with misery in his life.

"It's all right," he said. "They raiders are gone now."

"Is… everyone…?" The question was unfinished, but he knew.

He didn't want to say it. God, he would have given _anything_ in the world to say otherwise. It was cruel and horrifying and it would shatter her world into thousands of pieces, but it was the truth, it was the terrible truth, and there was no use in lying.

"Yes," he said, softer. He offered a calloused hand at the edge of the mattress. "Everyone's dead."

The little body under the bed succumbed to fits of wracking sobs.


	11. xi

"She disarmed it, you know. She really did." Simms holds the strange little object in his swarthy hand, pulsing soft and blue.

Billy Creel's throat feels dry. _I don't worship them. I like them. There's a difference._

The sheriff absently scratches his beard. "I didn't actually think someone would want to use it against us. I don't know, I… feel played." He shakes his head, licking his top row of teeth. "I shouldn't have been such a fool."

"You couldn't have known, Lucas," Billy finally manages. "There's a lot of fucked up people out there."

Simms nods his agreement, shifting on his stool at the Lantern's outdoor bar. "Don't you go telling those Atom folks, though. I don't want any trouble here."

"I know. You won't hear a word out of me, I promise you that." He watches him set the gadget on the worn wood of the counter. "What is that little thing, anyway?"

"She called it a 'fusion pulse charge.' Burke gave it to her." Simms nudges it with his thumb. "Once in the bomb, it would be rigged to explode from a single push from some kind of remote control." He sighs, settling his elbows on the counter. "I want the thing out of my sight, but I don't know what to do with it."

Billy wants to tell him that he saw the wanderer with it that one night, tucked at her hip as she knelt by the bomb and looked it over, but he can't find the words. "I'll sell it to one of the caravans," Billy offers. "Wolfgang'd probably be more than happy to take it. He doesn't have to know what it is."

The sheriff looks thoughtful. "I would like to get it as far away as possible, but I don't know if the bomb could be rewired. I don't want to take any chances."

"Ask her about it?" The words slide off his tongue before he can think about them.

Simms nods. "There's an idea." He hands the pulse charge to Billy. "Do me a favor, eh, Creel? I'm old and tired and would like to put this out of my head for the night."

Billy thinks this is a bad idea. The baddest idea of all bad ideas, in fact, but he doesn't say anything. Lucas is a friend, he tells himself, and he will do anything for a friend, even if it is a particularly bad idea that he would rather have no part in.

He takes the charge and pockets it, hoping he can find it in himself to approach the wanderer with a clear head.


	12. xii

"Maggie's lessons are going well," he says. It's a poor excuse for a conversation starter, he knows, but it's something they both can talk about without feeling too awkward. Children are good for that.

"That's good to hear," she replies. The wanderer offers a wan smile. She seems stronger somehow; the weeks she's spent in the wastes seem to have given her a good chunk of muscle on her spindly limbs.

There's an odd silence and Billy begins to grope around his brain for something to say next, but she prods at the glowing pocket along his belt and raises an inquiring eyebrow, saving him the trouble. Dredging up a deep sigh from his lungs, he pulls out the pulse charge and lets it sit in the palm of his hand.

"The sheriff's worried," he says shortly. "Doesn't want any more trouble with this little thing."

She knits her brow. "It's useless now."

Billy rolls the object around between his fingers. It's cool to the touch. "Yeah, but he's worried about the bomb. If it could be rigged again, even after what you did." He raises his gaze to her face, questioning, and then he finds himself spilling, "I saw this with you that one night."

Her eyes drop to the scrap metal balcony floor. _Shame._ Oiled strands of hair stick to her forehead in the night air. "I won't lie," she says. "I was tempted."

Something _had_ been wrong that night. Unbidden, he feels a protective fury begin to flare inside the cavity of his chest at her admission. Why would she even think of destroying Megaton? Sure, no town is ever perfect, but good people lived here, people with lives and thoughts and feelings, and god help him if stands by while she—

"You and Maggie changed my mind." She closes her hand around his, around the pulse charge and the leather glove covering his hand.

It takes a moment for him to absorb that. It dampens the coals beneath his lungs. "What?" It's not the most eloquent thing he could have said, but it gets his confusion across perfectly.

She makes an amused noise somewhere in her throat and bites at her lip. "I'm looking for my dad," she says. "He left Vault 101 not even a day before I did. Fresh out, I wanted to find him so badly that I'd do nearly anything for information about him. Burke saw me, offered me wealth and power, offered me things that could have helped in my search if I had used this, but seeing you and Maggie…"

The wanderer trails off, shaking her head, and her grip around his hand grows progressively tighter. Silence eats away at the contours of his brain and Billy wants to do _something_, he's not sure what, but he feels like he should be squeezing back, and he isn't.

"You both just reminded me of my childhood," she continues at last. A softness is in her eyes; sadness, defeat. "I didn't want to destroy that. I couldn't. I don't even know why I considered it. It was so selfish, wanting to sacrifice people I didn't even know for _scraps_." A trembling sigh shakes her chest. "I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. Blowing this place sky-high… The thought just makes me sick."

He knows she's truly sorry. He's not sure how, but he knows. He doesn't think he can forgive her fully, not yet, not for putting the people he knows and loves into danger, but he's getting there. Maybe someday.

Billy doesn't remember exactly how or when it happened, but his arms have curled around her. She's against him, her head pressed under his chin. Her shoulders shudder oddly and he feels her coming apart. His hands cross in the small of her back, perhaps so that he can pick up the falling pieces, but it doesn't seem to help because she's still shivering. His muscles tighten a little, the fusion pulse charge drops to the metal at their feet, an echoing _crack_, and the light dissolves.

He wonders if it should feel like electricity is jumping through his skin with her so close. It's not a foreign feeling, but it worries him, and so he tucks the thought away as he lets her discharge negative emotion into the neck of his jacket.

Immersed in a heady amalgam of gunpowder and leather, Billy swallows hard.

This was _such_ a bad idea.


	13. xiii

"I'm sorry," she says the next day on the metal rails. "I don't normally do that."

Billy brushes it off like it's nothing. He's a reasonable man and doesn't mind giving comfort when it's needed, especially when it comes to losing family, but the moment still gnaws at the back of his brain and it keeps him awake at night.

"You're just one of the few people out here that's treated me with some semblance of decency," she continues, peering at him from the corner of her eye. "I haven't hugged anyone since… well, the Vault."

He tells her that it's all right, that he understands, but it's really not all right and even though he really does understand, this isn't something he needs right now. He needs to be away from here, away from _her_, but he doesn't dare say anything because he still has a job left to do.

"What about the bomb?" he asks, brushing the conversation aside.

"Don't worry, it won't be rewired," she finally mutters. Her eyes are phlegmatic, discouraged. "I made sure of it."

He nods in reply, absently feeling the broken pulse charge in his jacket. This is good, he thinks. Lucas will be relieved.

Billy tells her goodbye. He has to get out of here, to turn and run while he still can. He knows he's getting into something he doesn't need because he's done this kind of thing before, damn it, and it's bad for him, _so_ bad for him, and it's not the answer to anything in his life.

He begins to move on his heel to go back to Simms, but she makes him pause with a gentle touch to the back of his hand. When he looks back over his shoulder, she disarms him with a smile. It's slight, sad, worried, lost, and it reminds him of things he doesn't want to remember.

Still, Billy finds himself squeezing her fingers with his own before walking away.


	14. xiv

Claire was small, but able. She knew how to put a bullet between someone's eyes and she knew how to keep a gun in good shape. She was fiery, fierce, and had five years' more experience in the wasteland. To a young man of twenty, she was a savior in the flesh.

She taught him more about basic survival skills: where to go for help, how to apply a stimpack, which drugs to take and which ignore, what places to avoid, and so much more. Her knowledge was invaluable, and when she promised to take him and Andy to a safe place to rest and recover their supplies, they were grateful to the bottom of their hearts.

The night they set up camp, she asked if she could share his cot. She didn't have one, she said. She had left it at her previous campsite.

Billy felt his cheeks flush under her stare, but he said that yes, she could. He never would have turned her down.

Claire was beautiful in her own right. Thick muscle ran along her calves and thighs, accompanied by ample hips and small breasts. Scars cut across her forearms and one sketched a thin, faded line across her cheek. Her hair was blond, but she had chosen to keep her head shaved, and so the stubble shone white in the firelight under the glow of pinprick stars.

After the fire had died into smouldering coals, they climbed in to sleep. Her body felt warm against him, welcoming and soft, and she made a point to press herself into his hips. Beneath the blankets, she made muffled noises as she let her hands roam along the contoured muscles of his chest, eventually following the trail of coarse hair down his stomach.

Billy kissed her, a fumbling and sloppy kiss, one that made her laugh as he pulled away. He had never done this with a woman, and so he had no choice but to do what he felt. Her lips were rough and chapped; they set him alight, on high, and he had never felt anything so good.

"I want you," she whispered. He shivered as she squeezed him under her warm fingertips.

"I want you, too," he whispered back.

Her eyes were mischievous and bright and _alive_. She pressed his mouth into another kiss as she brought him into her, and wet heat engulfed him in a rush. He stay still, shuddering, but she moved, and her hands were climbing his ribs and framing his jaws, her hips moving with a smooth rhythm. It was heaven, bliss and rapture and everything he could have wanted, and he felt in the center of it with Claire.

The stars seemed to burst and the world seemed to swirl as she asked him to come. He bit his lower lip so hard he thought he tasted blood. He might have, but she licked it away and grinned in the darkness, an amalgam of highlights and shadows under the face of the moon.

Sleep found him easy prey. And when dawn finally broke, he woke to find her gone.

Andy was cursing by the ruins of the fire. Their supplies were gone, too.


	15. xv

Simms says he's going to give her the deed to the empty house.

Billy thinks this is another bad idea. Not for the town—god knows Megaton needs more good, capable fighters to keep its walls safe—but for other reasons. Reasons he really doesn't want to talk about. And he can't say a thing, so he nods and smiles and tells Lucas that he's sure she'll be excited when she hears the news.

She is, of course, and he's there to see it because he's the one that tells her. God damn it, Lucas.

"He says he thinks you'll make better use of it," Billy manages, holding out his hand. The deed is rolled up in his palm, an old piece of paper, faded and crumpled, fastened with a piece of twine.

She takes it carefully, admiringly. "I'll have to thank him."

He can barely hear her. The saloon is noisy as it is every other evening. He's bought her a couple drinks and they're sitting together at the bar as two friends might, one hand on the glass and the other against the counter to keep balance. He's not sure if it's the liquid courage that's making him second guess things (Maggie would be so mad at him if she found out), but he's starting to wonder if _friends_ is even right. Are they friends? Really, what are friends in this world?

Her lips are sucking on whiskey and his tongue loosens up as more scotch settles in his belly. He finds himself saying things he wouldn't normally say and he knows it's happening and wishes he could stuff a towel in his mouth to stop it, but that would look… well, strange, that's the last thing he wants right now. Besides, he's not so sure Gob would appreciate him stealing his cleaning towels.

"You know, I didn't really trust you for a while, but you're all right," he says. "And that aim of yours against Burke—man, that was something. Simms probably wouldn't be kicking anymore if you hadn't shot him. Your eyes are sharp, doll. Wish I had eyes like that."

She licks the rim of the bottle and looks at his eye patch. "How'd you lose it?"

At first he doesn't realize what she's talking about and then _oh_, _that_, and he screws his mouth up into a displeased frown to counter the flush on his cheeks. "It was a long time ago. Back in my scavenging days. Some raider bastard with a switchblade did me in." He rubs the patch with his index finger, shaking his head. The scar there still itches. "Didn't think it'd ever happen to me. Wasn't careful enough. Stimpacks are great, but they can't get you back an eye."

The wanderer nods solemnly. "No, I guess they can't."

His gaze roams up and down her body, approving of the noticeable gain in muscle along her calves and biceps beneath the skin of her leathers. "Any bad scars under all that yet?"

She makes a noise that's like a choking laugh; whiskey is still in her throat. "A few," she manages, coughing up the alcohol from her windpipe. "Nothing as serious as an eye."

"Oh, hell, I'm sure they're just as impressive." He laughs, knocking back another shot. The burn is sweet. "Looks like you can handle yourself well enough, so I wouldn't doubt it."

A sobering expression shapes her face. "I really can't," she says. "Handle myself, that is. These past few weeks have been nothing but culture shock and killing and things like this." She swallows hard, her brow beetling. "The first man I ever killed was in the Vault. It took five shots because I couldn't hit a vital. My hands were shaking so bad. After I got out, I cried." She holds up the bottle of whiskey to the dim bar lights, watching the liquid swirl around the bottom. "Even this is new. I never drank before I came out here."

Billy wants to say something calm and comforting but his mind is clouding over and the words aren't forming right, so he shrugs and claps her solidly on the back. "There's a first time for everything, doll. The wasteland is cruel. Everybody wishes it weren't out there, but it is, and it ain't going nowhere anytime soon. We don't have much choice but to suck it up and get used to the idea, you know?"

She nods, nursing the whiskey against her chapped lips.

Billy moves his hand to rest on her shoulder. He doesn't know why he's doing this, but with the melancholy mood settling over their heads, he somehow feels like he should. "You'll make it through, though," he says, his lips a thinning smile. "I know you will. All of us will."

She smirks and tilts back the bottle, the last of it draining down her throat.


	16. xvi

In the morning, his head hurts too much to take Maggie out to shoot. She's disappointed, of course, but she's a resilient girl. She'll live.

She's also angry with him for going out drinking. He doesn't blame her—he had promised he wouldn't do it so much—but she just doesn't understand, it was about _business_, he had to give that deed to the wanderer before she left again, Simms had told him so.

The voice in the back of his head calls out his lie and stews him in guilt, deeper and deeper until his head is pushed beneath it and he can't breathe without sucking it in and filling his lungs to the brim.


	17. xvii

The wanderer is gone, and he feels a strange twinge near his heart.

He'll be helping Maggie keep her aim and watching her tense posture as she lines up for a shot, and he'll suddenly think of her. Uninvited, she climbs into his thoughts and nestles inside of him, coiling above his stomach, using his ribs as walls.

He'll be talking to Moira about new ideas for the Wasteland Survival Guide, and she'll inch her way under his skin and into the marrow of his bones. She'll sleep there, keeping him wide-eyed to the ceiling at night, vision spots and flashes of soft smiles.

He'll be in the little restroom shack, stripped to his skin and drenched under the shower nozzle with the curtain pulled around the cracked tub, and she'll climb along his spine and make his thoughts curl into pleasant things he wishes he could hold onto long enough to dissect their meaning.

Billy hates this, god does he ever hate it, but it's starting to make him look forward to when she comes back. And strangely enough, he likes that.

He hasn't had something new to look forward to in a long, long time.


	18. xviii

_Billy remembers:_

He was lying face down in the dirt with thick rope knotted tightly around his wrists. His skin was now chafed and breaking, red welts encircling his wrist bones. He had tried to wriggle free several times in the past hour. Unfortunately, it had proved to be futile. Whoever had tied him up knew their knots. Billy swore to god that if he ever got out of this place, he would learn how to do the same.

"Andy. _Andy_. Andy, you awake?" He was desperate. Even before the capture, he had been desperate. Food was scarce, water was scarce, safety even scarcer, and he never slept.

His brother stirred beside him on the ground, his arms similarly fastened behind his back. He turned to look at Billy; dark shadows lived under his eyes. "What is it…? What happened?"

"Raiders," whispered Billy. "They must have knocked us out. Took everything, brought us with them. I have no idea where we are."

He heard Andy growl, a low and menacing thrum in his chest. "Fucking bastards. Of course they would. Would have been kinder to kill us."

"Keep it down," he warned, his voice a threadbare whisper. "They might be listening."

They weren't, though. They were laughing and cursing by the crackling firelight, black silhouettes against the molten glow of the coals. Still, he didn't want to take any chances. He didn't want to give them an open invitation to press a barrel between his eyes.

"God, I'm so thirsty." Andy coughed. It was a harsh, rattling sound.

"So am I," said Billy. His throat felt like sand.

"Are you tied up?"

"Yeah. Wrists hurt pretty bad."

"Mine, too." His brother shifted, and he could hear the cartilage cracking in his vertebrae. "What are we going to do?"

Billy chewed on his lip. "They took my knife. If I could just get it back, or maybe get a hold of something else sharp, I could cut you free. After you got me out, we'd sneak off, get the fuck out of here."

"I think… I think my knife is still in my shoe." Andy made a grunting noise as he moved his legs. "Oh, yes. Thank god, it's still in there."

A spark of hope flickered to life in his chest. "Give it here," said Billy, rolling over to his side, allowing easier access to his hands. "Bring your foot this way. I'll see if I can get it." He felt the arch of Andy's boot hit his open palm. Quickly, he felt further up the laces and untied them, one knot at a time. "Where is it? Just in the side?"

"Yeah," said Andy. "The inside."

Billy reached in and touched the body of the pocket knife with his fingertips. Gritting his teeth, he managed to force it between middle and index finger. It was a hard grip to maintain, and after a few tries, he successfully pulled it out of Andy's boot. "Lower your hands a little. I'm going to try to cut you out. Be still." After his brother had shifted, he flipped out the blade and reached out behind him for Andy's wrists. When he touched the rough material of the rope, he applied some pressure with the knife and began to saw away at the bonds.

"Don't cut me on accident," whispered Andy.

"I won't," Billy replied.

"But you can't see. How are you going to know?"

Billy paused and pressed his thumb into where he had been cutting. The rope was still thick; only a centimeter or two had been split apart. "Stop worrying so much. I'll stop to check every now and then, all right? If anything, I'll hear you yelp."

"That's not funny," said Andy.

"Sure it is." Billy chuckled under his breath, but he didn't smile.

The rope was incredibly resilient, but the knife had finally managed to sever it in two. When the bonds fell away, Andy shuddered as he brought his hands to his chest, rubbing the soreness out of his reddened wrists.

Billy nudged the small of his back with his elbow. "You can thank me by getting me out of this. Now would be great."

"Sorry, sorry," said Andy. "Got carried away." He took the knife from Billy's outstretched fingers and rolled onto his other side, enabling him to see the knots that held Billy's wrists together. Slowly, Andy began to cut away at the rope.

The minutes seemed to crawl along, mocking him about his freedom, until finally the tension locking his arms, chest, and hands snapped and melted away. "Thank god," Billy moaned softly into the dirt, and he curled himself into a fetal position as he nursed the tender flesh around his wrist bones. Blood and broken skin stained the breast of his shirt.

Andy pressed the folded knife against Billy's back to summon his attention. "You know how to use it better," he whispered. "Take it. Just in case."

Billy's breathing escalated, but he nodded and accepted it anyway. As he pocketed the blade, he craned his neck toward the waning fire. Slumbering shadows and the feral grins of shining silver rifles greeted his eyes; monsters clothed in flesh and metal.

"Looks like some are still awake," he murmured, watching one of them shift around to the bulk of another rock. "Let's wait a bit longer. Wrap the rope around your hands again."

"Can't we just go now?" Andy twisted his mouth into a frown, the impatience splayed plainly across the gaunt features of his face. "I just got that off. I don't want it on me again."

"Look, I never said you had to tie it," said Billy. "Just loop it around a time or two. It has to be convincing. I don't know about you, but I don't want to eat any lead."

His brother shook with a heavy sigh. "My shoulders hurt," he said.

Billy shuffled the rope back around his aching wrists. "Mine do, too."

An hour drew by, and the raider camp fell into darkness. The night was clear and bright, with a half-moon and a star-speckled midnight sky. Billy quietly propped his body on an elbow as he surveyed his surroundings—sleeping raiders, a shivering glow from the coals, and a single stalwart guard standing watch beyond the head of the row of cots, far out of range.

Everything seemed opportune. Billy carefully shed his wrist bonds. Gathering his strength, he rose to his knees and brought out the pocket knife. A hand on Andy's shoulder, he brought a finger against his lips in warning. He felt his brother tense under his palm, but he didn't say a word.

The two crept along the perimeter of the camp, crawling along the rough bodies of rocks. Billy kept glancing over his shoulder as they inched closer to freedom, desperate and thirsty and tired and aching and hoping with every fiber that they could walk out of here unscathed. He could hear the sounds of their snores carrying over, and he just waited for the echoing shout of an alarm.

It seemed like hours until they were far enough away, far enough to be _safe_. The palms of his hands were punctured with sharp stones and smeared with dirt, and with a light grunt, Billy rose on shaking knees to his full height. "I… I think we're okay now," he said.

Andy cracked his neck and murmured a groan of approval as he pulled himself from the ground. "Thank god. We're fucking lucky. Let's get out of here before they notice."

A sudden snapping of dried grass and twisted twigs made them turn their heads. Billy's heart began to thud in the cavity of his chest and he felt his muscles contract, flex, ready, waiting for anything to lurk forward out of the darkness.

"Who's there? Tenz, is that you?" It was a deep, scratchy voice. Another raider, strayed from the camp, probably to relieve himself.

Neither of them answered to the call. The knife in Billy's hand felt foreign, but he unfolded the blade.

Andy met his eyes. "What do we do?" he mouthed.

Billy bit his lip. He wasn't sure. If they ran, they'd most likely be caught. If they killed the man, they'd most likely be caught. If they hid and the raider returned to camp and realized that their prisoners were gone, they'd most likely be caught.

He really hated making decisions like this.

Tightening the grip on the knife, he pressed his back to one of the large rocks nearby, listening intently for the intruder. The man stumbled through the dust and the brush, calling for one of his friends. When he neared Billy's position, he took pause and peered through the darkness.

Billy struck. It was quick and sloppy and he tried to shove the blade into the man's chest, throat, belly, but he hadn't anticipated being on the receiving end of another knife. He ceased his attack and twisted around to escape, but the switchblade came at him again, again, again, and he nearly toppled backward onto the broken surface of another rock. He thought he saw Andy try to throw himself onto his pursuer to impede his path, but he couldn't be sure; it was so hard to see.

In retreat, he managed to catch the edge of his knife across the raider's arm. A whip of dark blood splattered across the ground. A part of him began to rejoice, but it was short lived.

The raider's reply was brusque. White-hot pain seared across Billy's nerves, across his _face_, sharp and raw and open. Black welled down his cheek in a steady stream. Billy opened his mouth in a jagged cry, shock sluicing him over; he couldn't see, he couldn't _see_, what happened to his eye, he couldn't _see_—and drugged with panic and adrenaline, Billy felt a feral snarl crawl up his throat as he caught a hold of the raider's arm, closing his hand over the man's fist, constricting, fighting for the right to live, and he brought his knee straight into his opponent's groin and thrust the thick blade of his knife under his jaw.

The man cried out in a gurgle. It was a whimper, a cough, a plea, and it was sickening. Billy let the man slump onto the ground in his final throes.

Slowly, he brought a shaking hand to his eye. The pain was unbearable. Nothing felt right. There was a _gash_, open flesh, something was wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

He wiped away all the blood in a frenzy. His palm was covered. Long streaks of black stained his arm and his sleeve and the ends of his shirt. He still couldn't see.

He heard the thrum of Andy's voice. He was saying something, something important, something he must have forgotten, but he couldn't hear. Everything was muffled as if he were submerged under water, drowning, drowning, down, sinking into nothing.

He still couldn't see.

The pocket knife fell from his dripping fingers, and he screamed.


	19. xix

Several weeks pass before the wanderer returns again.

Billy sees her as she comes through the Megaton gate, and instantly he knows she's grown stronger. He can see it in the way she carries herself: long strides, hard eyes, steady shoulders, and a comfortable grip on the thick leather strap of her rifle. Confidence sings in how her muscles move, and she walks forward with silence and purpose. She's becoming something formidable, something strong, and he can't help but feel a swell of elation when he sees her draw close.

"Hey," she says, offering a smile as she pauses before him.

"Gone this long and that's all you got, doll? Not much of a greeting." He's playful and chiding, more than glad to talk with her again, but not willing to admit it to a damn soul. "It's good to see you're still in one piece, though. Maggie was worried about you, you know."

She chuckles, pressing her hand onto a tilted hip. "You can tell Maggie I'm doing fine. How's the N99 treating her?"

"As good as ever," he says. "Had to take it to Moira a few times to get a couple parts replaced, but other than that, it's been golden. She's getting much better with her aim."

"And how's Billy?" She cocks her head to the side, an eyebrow arched, and he can't help but stare at her.

"Me? I'm fine," he says, almost hesitant, somewhat unsure of how to respond.

"How does a drink sound? To catch up and all."

Billy knows it's a bad idea, but he shoves the warning aside. "Yeah," he replies, a smile beginning to spread. "Yeah, I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

Her laughter is quiet and it chimes in his ears. Her hand curls up and she tweaks the end of his beard with slender fingers, gently tugging on the coarse hair. He feels his heart perform a strange flop in his chest as he feels her skim along his jacket to pat his shoulder, and when he spins on his feet to watch her go, he sees a mischievous grin spread across her face, proud and defiant and like nothing he's ever seen from her before.

God, he thinks.

Confident, indeed.


	20. xx

Just one drink, he had told himself, and yet here he is, floating somewhere on his third.

Her stories keep him on the edge of the barstool. Billy hasn't really had the chance to listen to someone share encounters they've had out in the wastes in a long time, and for some reason she draws him in by the cuff of his collar. He thinks it's her voice, maybe, but it's also the way she's sitting with her shoulders slumped just slightly and the way her eyes study the counter, the glasses, the bar.

"The outskirts of DC were worse than I'd thought," she says, her fingers toying with the neck of a beer bottle. "I never saw a super mutant until a week ago. They're tough as nails and their aim is incredible." She shifts uneasily, licking her bottom lip. "A single shot to the head won't drop them, either. I've never seen something so strong. I ended up ducking into the old Metro and doing what I do best: hiding around corners and luring them in with grenades and mines."

Billy finds himself grinning. "Explosives, huh?"

She nods. "Every time. They work like a charm. Nothing's as satisfying as pulling the pin."

The liquor is slowly snaking its fire into the center of his chest. He feels braver, calmer, able to chase the light and win. "You seem different," he remarks, peering at her with his good eye.

The wanderer furrows her brow in confusion, her lips a thin frown. "What do you mean?"

"You seem tougher. Able to take on anything that comes at you." He takes a swig of whiskey to help bolster his smouldering courage. "And you're not afraid like you were that night by the bomb."

She takes a silent moment, absorbing. "I guess I do feel surer of myself. I don't think I could have gone to DC two months ago."

"No offense, doll, but I know you couldn't." Billy takes another drink. His throat is beginning to burn, but he swallows thickly and ignores the sting. "You've come a long way from the scraggly little vaultie that showed up on Megaton's doorstep. You can shoot, you can survive, and you got what it takes to jam a stimpack in your leg and keep running. I'd say that's all right. Wouldn't you?"

Somehow, her fingers have crept closer to his hand that rests flat on the countertop. He feels the warmth from her skin touch his knuckles and it sends a jump spiderwebbing shocks through his nerves.

"What were your scavenging days like, Billy?" she asks.

If he didn't have so much liquor in him, he would have told her that he didn't want to talk about it. It's a touchy subject, one that he wants to forget and leave buried back in the recesses of his mind, but he's sitting here with a bottle in hand and wavering toward fuzziness and courage, and the heat from her hand makes his spine tremble, and he finds himself telling her anyway.

"It depends," he says. "There were good days and bad days, just like everything else. Sometimes I'd run into abandoned buildings that hadn't been looted yet, and I'd walk back a richer man. Other times I'd run into raiders, and I'd have to run further into the wasteland just to save my sorry hide. It was luck of the draw and whether or not I had any smarts. Bad days and bad decisions gave me this." He brings a finger just below his eye patch, lifting the end only enough so she can see the start of the jagged scar that crawls up over the flesh of his eyelid. He sees her peer at him in curiosity, and he adds, "I have others just like it. They didn't hurt near as bad, though, believe me."

She brings a tentative hand against her cheek, as if to prevent the same from happening to her. "I can't even imagine."

"Yeah. I saw more death out there than I'll care to admit. It was rough and I took a lot of risks I probably shouldn't have. The work could be satisfying when I brought back enough to trade, but after Maggie's family… well, that was enough for me. I finally decided to settle down. And as strange as it sounds, I really think Maggie was the best thing to happen to me. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead by now if it weren't for her."

Silence encroaches for countless moments. She drinks from her bottle, and he from his, and her fingers still linger along the edge of his hand. He's not sure what he should do; the heat from the liquor tells him he should ask her what the hell she thinks she's doing, but the warmth coiling around his heart wants him to frame a hand around her jaw, to pull her close and kiss her.

Billy shakes his head. He doesn't know where this urge came from, but he wishes it would leave.

"What time is it?" he asks, taking another forceful swallow of whiskey.

The wanderer tilts her left wrist, studying the screen of her pip-boy. "Ten o'clock."

"I should probably turn in. Have to wake up early to help Maggie and I'd hate to disappoint her by cancelling another shooting lesson because my head hurts too damn much." Putting down the bottle, he tosses a few caps to Gob and gets up from the barstool. "Have a good night, doll," he says to her, offering a smile. "I'll see you around."

The night air is salvation. It's cool and windy and it dries the sweat dotting his hairline, evaporating the burn inside of him. He breathes deep, savoring the coolness as it touches his lungs, and starts the walk toward his house. It's not long before he realizes that he's not alone: another set of footsteps echoes along the scrap metal bridges. Quirking an eyebrow, Billy looks over his shoulder.

She's there, alone in the path behind him. Her quiet sniper eyes are locked hard and focused, staring like she's appraising a mark down the scope just before she pulls the trigger. For a split moment, he feels a spark of apprehension skip across his spine.

"Decided to turn in for the night, too?" He hopes it sounds amiable, but she doesn't reply. Instead, she draws closer, her hand reaching out for him, and when he feels the warmth of her palm on the rough stubble of his cheek, he sucks in a sharp breath and tries not to let her see how nervous he is.

"I don't understand," she murmurs. "This is new for me."

He hopes he's misheard her because the very implications make his head spin. His muscles tense; he's on edge, ready for anything, fire crawling through his veins. "Understand what?"

"In the Vault, I didn't do this. It wasn't something I thought about." Her teeth worry at her lower lip. "The boys I knew weren't… desirable."

His heart succumbs to the adrenaline spearing through his veins and it begins to beat faster, hammering hollow rhythms. Words are caught in his throat; he can't swallow right. "And… I am?" He sounds hoarse, gravelly, like he's stolen the voice of a ghoul.

Her head moves in what he thinks looks like a nod. "I'm sorry if this seems strange," she says. "It's strange to me. I only know what I've seen and heard. I don't know what I'm doing."

She's younger than him. By how much, he doesn't know. Maybe five years, maybe ten. He briefly considers telling her this, telling her that all of this isn't worth it and that it's not a good idea and that she's probably going to regret anything she feels like she wants to do, but he can't force his voice out of his mouth. She's _inches away_, so close that he can smell the alcohol on her, and the warmth from her hand on his cheek is spreading into his brain and _god_ he's forgotten just what this feels like.

"You don't want to do this," he finally manages, gently guiding her fingers away. "It's not something you should get into, doll. It'll only hurt you from the inside out. Trust me on this."

"I do trust you," she says. "That's the thing."

Billy sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "You're not making this easy, you know."

"Nothing is easy. Not out here." She looks up at him expectantly, the pale moonlight stretching across her gaunt cheek bones and drying sweat on her skin.

"This really isn't a good idea, especially when we're both liquored up." He has to make her see that. He _has _to, damn it. "You might think you want this now, but you probably won't remember any of it in the morning."

"But I will," she insists. Her murky sniper eyes bore into him, running him straight through, pinning him against the sky and opening him up and exposing the spinning gears of his heart.

"That's what they all say," Billy replies. And he would know.


	21. xxi

_Billy remembers:_

Her name was Minerva, but everyone called her Minnie.

She was such a sweet young thing. Playing a waitress at a ramshackle restaurant, her charms and smiles were stunning behind limpid eyes. Plain clothes and a smattered apron did little to hide the fact that her body was all bones and knobs and points at the joints. Lank black hair framed her pale face, cropped unevenly as though it had been cut with a butcher knife.

Barely twenty, she held a grungy kind of beauty. She was nothing like Claire.

When Billy first entered the little place, he kept his face hidden, ignored the gaggle of other chattering patrons, and sat down at the end of the bar. Flush with the wall at his right, he folded his arms against the rough wood of the counter and began to brood. It was Minnie that saw him first.

"Hello," she said, her voice an amiable song. "I'm Minnie, and I'll be taking care of you tonight. What would you like, dearie?" She drew up to his left side, a pad in one hand with the half of a snapped pencil in the other.

"Alcohol," he said. "I don't care what it is as long as it'll do its job."

She seemed taken aback by the curt reply. He noted the clear blue of her eyes as she jotted down his request. "Um, anything else?"

"Nope. Not a thing." He grunted and stared at the splintering wood under his elbows, a Neanderthal in the flesh.

She edged away with cautious steps, as if she were unsure what to make of him. He pretended not to care.

It was a few moments later when a bottle of whiskey was placed at his arm. "I'm sorry it's not better," she said, touching his shoulder. "It's all we have. A bit old and watered, but it should still be good."

Billy popped off the cap and drank, shrugging off her tentative touch. He wrinkled his nose when the bitter aftertaste burned his tongue. It wasn't ideal, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "It'll do, I guess. Thanks, doll."

"Want anything else?" She was looking at him strangely, as though she had never seen a man before. He didn't like it.

"I'm fine," he replied, and waved her off.

She complied with one last glance over her shoulder.

Night spooled out across the windows in spectrums of cool cobalt and gunmetal clouds. The bottle drained quickly and the warmth spread down across his nerves, loosening the tension in his chest and shoulders. It was a pleasant sensation. He hadn't felt this way in days. The heat and the harsh conditions in the wastes wore away at his sanity, and this was a replenishment like no other.

When the bottle reached the bottom, Billy decided that he had had his fill. He pulled a handful of caps from his jacket's pockets and left them on the counter, coupled with the brown body of the empty whiskey bottle. Content with his pick of poison, he skulked out of the bar, his mind floating in a pleasurable haze.

What he hadn't expected was another body following in his footsteps.

Billy glanced behind him. "What are you doing here?"

Minnie stepped out of the shadows, dropping all pleasant pretense. "You're one of those people that roam the wastes, aren't you?" The way she said _people_ made it sound accusing.

"Yeah, I might be," he said, rolling out the cracks in his shoulders. "What of it?"

Her fists were clenched at her sides, whitening at the knuckles. The crescents of her eyes were damp; a shimmer in the dark. "Take me with you."

Billy opened his mouth to reply, but paused when he realized that he didn't know what to say. He had never been asked that before. How was he supposed to respond? Drawing in a deep breath, he kept his back to her. "You don't know what you're asking."

"Please," she said, moving closer. "Take me with you. You're the first new person I've seen in weeks. I'm… I'm so sick of it here. You don't know what it's like. Please, take me somewhere else, somewhere nice."

"And what makes you think I'll be going somewhere nice?"

"Your kind all do."

He wanted to tell her that she knew nothing of him. She knew nothing of him or his _kind_, of who he was and what he set out to do and what he faced every day, and that a lightheaded town waitress shouldn't expect a damn thing from someone like him, but he didn't.

Instead, Billy bit his tongue and sighed. "That ain't the truth, little lady. Some of us are going places we don't ever want to see, but we go anyway because we have to. Some of us have no choice. Some of us do this because it's the only way we know." He turned and faced her, determined to show her what he meant.

"Oh my god," she breathed, taking a sudden step back. "My god, your _eye_."

He had looked into a mirror enough times to know exactly what she saw: the face of a young man of twenty-three with a fresh, jagged scar tearing up the flesh across his right eye. A milky white orb of glass kept the socket from collapsing, and it stared back with an eerie emptiness.

Minnie's expression was a bizarre clash between fascination and horror. "Are… are those stitches?" Her fingers hovered toward the reddened skin, trembling.

"Don't." He flinched away. Even though she hadn't even touched him, he didn't want her to try. He was balancing on the line, precariously on the edge, and it was taking all of his concentration to keep himself from accepting the plunge.

"Are you okay?" Her voice was rife with concern. It was something he hadn't heard from another person in a long while, and it crept under his skin and into his veins, pushing through toward his heart.

"I'm fine." It was harsh and abrupt, punctuating his disinterest. He wished he could believe himself. Pivoting on his heel, he began to walk away.

The strength of her hand enclosing around his wrist made him stop. "Please," she said. "I… if I can't go with you, then help me."

He shouldn't ask, he knew, but the hook had pierced through his tongue and it was drawing him in, blood and flesh and all. "How?"

Minnie squeezed. The warmth from her palm snaked along the length of his arm. "I need money. Just a little. I mean, I wouldn't just ask you to just give it to me. I could do something for it, anything, I really could—"

Billy gritted his teeth and pulled his wrist away. "I don't think so."

"Are you sure?" He felt her breasts press against his shoulder blades and her fingers roam up his sides. They were thin, strong; working hands.

He set his jaw to ignore the stoking fire. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

"Caps don't grow on trees." Her voice was bitter.

Billy forced a halfhearted chuckle from his throat. "Sorry, lady. I'm not fucking you for caps."

"I promise, I'll make it worth your while." Her insistent fingers unbuckled his belt, snaking under the leather of his armor. "Just let me try."

He fought the urge pooling inside of him, but it proved useless, and he sucked in a sharp breath of air when her hand curled around him and began with slow, long strokes. "Not here," he found himself saying, but it sounded so distant and muffled to his ears, an entire world away. His head was spinning as her mouth met his collarbone, wet and warm and wrong.

Billy knew he shouldn't be doing this. Andy was expecting him at the other side of town. They had to leave, move on, get away from this place to drift off to the next, and yet here he was, completely enthralled with ignited lust, following Minnie as she pulled him down an alleyway and into the back of the restaurant. He could taste the alcohol on her lips as she yanked him down for a kiss. She had been drinking, too, without a doubt. Considering the state of this town, she had plenty of reason. He didn't blame her. Not even when it took her twenty seconds to fumble with the door.

The bed was rickety and the mattress had seen better days, but it was more than enough. Billy held her hips and saw her bones as they stretched under her skin, highlights and shadows curling around her with every piece of clothing shed. Her ribcage was a ladder across her lungs, and his hands drummed along them and brushed her breasts while his mouth sketched lines along the slender tendons of her pale neck.

When he thrust inside her, her palms were flat upon the stubble on his cheeks, her fingertips close to the scar that marred his eye. The sounds she made were saccharine, and he savored them with the heat coiling in his loins. Soft bruises appeared beneath his teeth as the moon loomed across the sky, and the warmth of her hands against his back and shoulders urged him into shuddering release.

Billy collected his clothes just as the sun began to chase away the darkness. The woman that lay in the bed slept soundly, the blankets strewn across her body. His scars hurt and his mind was nothing but fog, but he knew what he had done.

Handfuls of caps were resting on the nightstand when Minnie opened her eyes.


	22. xxii

Billy leaves the wanderer out on the metal balconies, allowing himself only a kiss on her forehead. It's something simple, chaste; something to show her that he really does care for her, because he does. God, he does.

But he starts to think that perhaps he shouldn't have done that. It implies too much. And the hurt look in her eyes haunts him under his skin throughout the night.

Dawn creeps through the cracks under the shack's threshold, and Billy stirs with the ticking of his internal clock. Maggie is still asleep in the loft upstairs from the soft, even sound of her snores, and so he crawls out of bed quietly, taking care not to make much noise.

He dresses with an unaccustomed slowness, taking note of each scar: every mistake he's made, every bad decision, every plan gone wrong. He swallows as he pulls his eye patch away and looks at his reflection in the jagged shard of a mirror. An ugly, puckered scar mars his face, splitting across his right eye and ending abruptly at his temple. He opens the lid halfway and white glass stares back at him; a piece of the moon pressed into his body.

He grimaces and tugs the patch back into its rightful place.

After knotting his bandana, he pulls his undershirt over his head and slides into his jacket and vest. He clips on the leather ammo belts, sets his .44 at his hip, and with some reluctance, finally decides that he's ready to face the day.

When Maggie's dressed, he brings extra bottles with them outside Megaton. He sets them along some rocks and ledges at a good distance under the rising sun. After he checks Maggie's weapon, he pulls his magnum out of its holster and checks it as well.

Snapping the six-chamber shut, he takes aim.

Shots echo and bottles shatter, the glass a shimmering mosaic in the sky.


	23. xxiii

The wanderer disappears again into the Capital Wasteland, and Billy Creel feels relief.

It's not that he wants her to leave. He would rather have her stay in Megaton. Another defender for the walls; another good shot; another able body to help keep everyone safe.

It's the tension that coils inside of him when she's near. It's hungry, sharp, unyielding, and it makes him regret turning her away. It was the right thing to do, he _knows_ it was, but a part of him still regrets it and wishes he might have told her yes. It eats away at him, gnawing the lining of his skull as she smiles at him beneath his eyelids.

It's after twelve when he wanders into the Craterside Supply. Maggie's N99 and his .44 magnum are holstered on his belt, cold metal reminders latched to his hip.

"Afternoon, Moira," he says, shutting the door with the side of his boot.

She looks up from the bulk of a leather hauberk spread across the counter. "Well, hello there," she replies with a grin, and she hurriedly pulls her red hair back into a disheveled bun with a thin strand of twine. "What brings you here today, Billy? Need something fixed?"

He offers a brusque nod and pulls the two firearms from their respective holsters. "They're running down a bit, I think," he says. "Maggie likes to keep hers in top shape. Not that I blame her."

Moira clears a space on the counter. When he hands her the magnum, she takes it carefully between her spindly fingers and examines it with a note of awe. "Wow, this feels like an honor. I haven't seen this old girl in quite a while. Been keeping her all to yourself?" She laughs at her own joke, but when Billy doesn't join her, her eyebrows knit together and she tilts her head to the side, as if to get a better look at him. "What's wrong? You seem… well, you seem pretty down."

Billy stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Sorry," he says, staring intently at the back wall. Gadgets of all shapes and sizes line the shelves, stacked and entwined with one another into intricate piles. An impressive display for any store. "There's just a lot on my mind lately. It's been getting kind of hard to deal with."

With the magnum and the N99 safely stashed to the side, Moira rests her elbows on the countertop and presses her chin into the heels of her hands. "Well, that's no good. Do you want to talk about it? You don't have to, of course, but I heard it's always best to talk about those kinds of things. Helps ease your chest a little. You know what I mean?"

He shifts uneasily. "I don't want to trouble you with anything, Moira. It's not really something you'd want to hear about."

Moira scrunches her nose. "Oh, don't be silly. You won't trouble me at all. I know just about everything that happens around here. Not much bothers me anymore."

"It's still not something you'd want to hear," he argues.

"You know I don't believe that," she says. "When did you ever tell me something that I didn't want to hear?"

"Just forget about it, all right? I'll be fine."

Moira rolls her eyes. "Oh, Billy Creel, you're as stubborn as a… as… as a _mule_!"

He arches an eyebrow. "As a what?"

"A mule," she says, a bit sheepish. "It's an old expression. Not the mule, the saying. A mule was supposed to be the offspring of a horse and a donkey. It couldn't actually procreate, though, so the only way to get a mule was to breed horses and donkeys and hope the DNA worked out. Supposedly mules were incredibly stubborn, but also surefooted and very strong. I read about them in an old book once."

"I never did read much," he admits, rubbing his neck. He secretly hopes he'll never encounter anything about mules.

"But you really should!" A noticeable excited flush rises in her cheeks. "There are so many interesting things about the old world written in them, you know. Technology, histories and stories before the war, accounts of all sorts of things, blueprints for weapons, oh, and just imagine what kinds of things we could find out if we could reclaim all of that information! In fact, I sent my assistant out to see if we could do just that. She's out at the Arlington Library, you know, trying to salvage some old catalogue files. Maybe she'll even bring back the whole library! Wouldn't that be great?"

"It would," he agrees, but only because it's steering her away from his melancholy mood. If he can talk long enough so that she forgets about it and fixes the firearms, he won't have to stay too long.

He doesn't want to think about Moira and her knowledge of everyone in Megaton. It makes his stomach churn.

And most of all, he doesn't want to think about the wanderer.


	24. xxiv

It startles Billy when Maggie confronts him before bed.

"You're not acting yourself," she says, smoothing out her nightshirt. She's giving him a curious look, as if appraising his thoughts right through his skin. "What's wrong with you?"

He gathers a deep sigh in his lungs and kneads his temples. Had it really been that obvious? "To be honest, I don't really know, sweetheart."

"You know what I think? _I_ think it's the alcohol. You really should stop drinking so much, Billy. You know it's bad for you, but you do it anyway." She plants her hands on her hips as she stares at him matter-of-factly, and he can glimpse the shadow of an adult in her. "Besides, it'd save us caps. Drinks can be pretty expensive. You don't want us to go broke, do you?"

He manages to crack a smile. "All right, I get it, enough with the lecturing. Aren't you a bit young to be worrying about money?"

"No," says Maggie, but she sticks her tongue out at him anyway.

Billy laughs and swoops down on his knees to encompass her in a tight hug. As he settles his chin on her knobby shoulder, he can't help but think how lucky he is. There's something about the little girl that just makes things _better_, and he hasn't the slightest idea how he's made it this far without her. With all the things that he's done, he's sure he would have been long gone by now. A part of him knows he would be if it hadn't been for her.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asks. A small hand presses over the rough stubble on his cheek, gentle and worrying.

"Yeah, I'll be all right." He pulls back and takes her by the wrist, lightly kissing the flat of her palm. "Don't you worry about me, baby girl. I'll be fine."

Her eyes brighten. "Does this mean we can actually go shooting tomorrow?"

He stifles another chuckle and hugs her that much tighter. "I love you, Maggie. And don't you forget it."

"Okay, sure, but we _can_ go shooting, right?"

Billy ruffles his hands affectionately through her nest of black hair. "Yeah, we can go. Moira fixed everything up, so we're all set. Just have to make sure to keep an eye on everything. That means not emptying a full clip in ten seconds, you hear?"

But Maggie isn't listening. She leaps from his arms and thrusts her fist into the air, declaring victory, and then dances off upstairs to bed with light and fluttering steps. Delighted giggles sail from the loft.

Billy only grins, feeling strangely content for the first time in weeks.


End file.
